{"id":8734,"date":"2023-06-22T13:58:16","date_gmt":"2023-06-22T13:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=8734"},"modified":"2023-06-22T13:58:16","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T13:58:16","slug":"the-fatherhood-week-ignite-the-change-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2023\/06\/22\/the-fatherhood-week-ignite-the-change-event\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fatherhood Week: Ignite The Change Event"},"content":{"rendered":"
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John Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Angie Hayes<\/strong><\/em>
\nThe Truth Reporter<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Lucas County Fatherhood Coalition: Ignite The Change Event at Mott Branch Library on June 15 continued the group\u2019s Fatherhood Week with an exchange of ideas. The event offered knowledge, information and support to encourage growth for the fathers in our environment. Various speakers provided information and support by sharing their individual experiences, skills and motivation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no cost to the county to do this,\u201d said Avis Files, co-chair of the Coalition. \u201cA couple of months ago this came out and years ago, they did this whole project in 2013. And we just kind of talked about it and thought it would be good for us to do this again. So, we look in our community, to do a county assessment. So, we are still in the process of doing the assessment. I need two hundred fathers to be surveyed. Because that\u2019s where we get good data. Two hundred is a good sample size, to be able to say, \u2018This is what our county needs.\u2019 So, we are still working on that. We want to produce that data for you; so that you will be able to see and know what fathers are saying about what they need help with. And again, we are being intentional about serving and working with African American fathers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cWhat we talk about today, we want some action with as well,\u201d Files continued. \u201cSo, we needed to develop a county leadership team; the interesting part and the good part about our leadership team is that we already had it going. The Lucas County Fatherhood Coalition is getting bigger and bigger. It started out as just a coalition of people; but now we have every single area. You\u2019ll be able to see that every area in Lucas County is represented. If you are interested in joining us and being on the Coalition, please let us know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The afternoon\u2019s panelists and speakers included: Christina Rodriguez, executive director of Mom\u2019s House; Bob Jordan, Pathway, Inc. CFO; David Kontour, Coalition co-chair and John Jones, president and CEO of HOPE Toledo<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery social ill, we have had conversations in this community about social ills: children not learning how to read. Children having issues can be solved with one word: one person: Dad\/Daddy! In this community I want us to practice something. I am going to ask everyone to stop saying this and it will be helpful, and it will change the trajectory of children\u2019s lives. Don\u2019t use the term baby mama or baby daddy. When we say baby daddy, we just mean \u2018he over there being nothing\u2019 and when we say baby mama, \u2018she ain\u2019t nothing.\u2019\u00a0 When we say that and our children hear that and we continue to say things like that, then we become the perpetuators of what we are experiencing in our community. So please, as you work together, when you hear somebody say baby daddy\u2026uh-huh no that\u2019s co-parent!\u00a0 Let\u2019s change our dialogue, lets change our approach because if we do that, that alone will change our community,\u201d added Files.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cIt\u2019s important to have fathers involved so we\u2019re running the program: Dads Matter\u201d Christina Rodriguez, executive director, \u00a0Mom\u2019s House. \u201cWe have started pouring into Dads; we have to invest our time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDispelling the MYTH of black fathers! Black dads are more engaged than counterparts,\u201d Jones noted during his speech. \u201cI am a firm believer, words matter: \u2018We co-parent together!\u201d Dad\u2019s matter. We got to work together\u2026.support Mom\u2026support Dad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Angie Hayes The Truth Reporter The Lucas County Fatherhood Coalition: Ignite The Change Event at Mott Branch Library on June 15 continued the group\u2019s Fatherhood Week with an exchange of ideas. The event offered knowledge, information and support to encourage growth for the fathers in our environment. Various speakers provided information and support by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[180],"class_list":["post-8734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8737,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8734\/revisions\/8737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8734"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=8734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}